Daily Routine in Kololo

     Since returning to Kololo I have comfortably slid back into my daily
routine. Wake at 6:30, read as the sun rises above my right shoulder,
eat a breakfast of local fruit, eggs and grains and then head down to
the work site by 755. At about 510pm labor is finished up for the day.
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday it's calisthenics with an audience of
enthusiastic kids, on the off days it's mountain running with a
confused audience of a half a village. People out here would rather
conserve their calories for daily rigors then take part in superfluous
exercises. Well... duh.

     The other day after weight training, the children who practice their
counting as we pull, push or sit up, felt inspired. Not by the goofy
sweating foreigners, but by their counterpart; Tashagre. As per usual,
the little guy was concerned with only himself, and decided to put on
a short exhibit of his stick handling ability. The two year old
Tashagre sauntered up to the lot of us, stood beside his sister, and
meaningfully banged a forked twig against the ground while 

simultaneously mumbling something incomprehensible, even to his pals.
If one was to have taken a photo at that moment, Tashagre and his
sister with their home in the background, would have been the rural
African preschool addition of the famous painting American Gothic.
Sadly, I was unable to react in time, and instead had a belly full of
laughs at the guys awesomeness.

      What happened next, well all of our mini personal trainers took off
running for the nearest stick, returned and proceeded to put on a
show. Needless to say, Tashagare was disinterested, and simply walked
away.

      Following our workouts we still make our daily homage to the local
waterfall for cleansing the body, socks, and mind. While the sunsets
over the Kololo valley, we gingerly ease our selves in and out of the
brisk river waters. We then cautiously return to the refuge of our
house as the hyena coos begin to whistle through the cooling air. Tea,
dinner, music, conversation, reading and then sleep follow.
And then we do it again. I rather like our routine.

Here's a few shots of the stick dancing. Notice Tashagre is nowhere to
be seen.

This group makes up about 2/3s of the usual crowd. Due to the fact
that the kids chaperone themselves, we sometimes refer to our time in
front of our house as the Kololo Daycare.